


Subscribed

by TheWalrusAndTheCarpenter



Series: Climbing Class Youtubers AU [2]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Youtubers, Gaming, Gen, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, NO WENDIGOS, Pre-Relationship, basically the events of the game never happened so everyone is alive safe and happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalrusAndTheCarpenter/pseuds/TheWalrusAndTheCarpenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hello, friends and fans! I know it’s been a while since I’ve done a video that wasn’t gaming related but, y’know, I’ve not had much to say until now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

To say that Chris liked _JustJoshing_ ’s videos would be a total understatement. He had spent all evening getting back up to date on the man’s Bioshock 2 playthrough and Chris was almost certain that he was developing some sort of weird crush on the other YouTuber.

From the small facecam he had in the top right corner of all of his videos, Chris could tell that he was _very_ attractive. He had smooth, tanned skin with dusty green-blue eyes. And even though his facecam didn’t take up much screen space, Chris could clearly see the way his brown hair curled slightly.

Josh’s channel was much more popular than Chris’ but that was probably because _JustJoshing_ was started a couple of months before Chris had even thought about joining YouTube.

His videos were always quite light hearted and from the looks of things Josh really got invested in his characters. With each new game he acted a little differently, as though he changed how he went about the game depending on how the protagonist acted. It was a different approach to how Chris played his games, which was mainly him trying to be the good guy in every situation and making sure that everyone stayed alive.

Refreshing the page, Chris saw that Josh had just uploaded a new video. Unlike the majority of his videos, this one was a sort of vlog. With gaming channels, vlogs always meant that there was an announcement to be made so Chris was instantly intrigued. Clicking on the title, he readjusted his headphones.

“Hello friends and fans… okay that didn’t sound quite right.” On the, quite frankly dirty, screen of Chris’ computer, Josh cleared his throat and started again with a lopsided smile.

“Hello, friends and fans! I know it’s been a while since I’ve done a video that wasn’t gaming related but, y’know, I’ve not had much to say until now. First off, I’ve got a couple of awesome videos lined up that I really think you’re all going to enjoy but they’re top-secret right now and will be posted probably over the next few weeks.

“Okay, so with that outta the way… I’ve been thinking that it was about time I broadened my YouTube-ing horizons and maybe did a few collabs? Now, I know what you’re all thinking _“Josh, how can you do collabs without anyone to collab with?”_ and that is a very valid point. Well, I was thinking what if you guys contacted me and then I could see if it was possible to do a some videos with a few of you dudes. Of course that’d all depend on time zones and location and things like that but…” Josh paused for a second and then shrugged, still keeping his dopey smile on his face.

“I just thought that something like that would be kinda cool. I know that since conventions are kinda a no-go for me at the moment I don’t get to interact with you guys that much and I thought that this’d be a more fun way of going about it. So, let me know what you guys think and if you guys want to try and give this collab thing a go then just contact me, all of my information is in the usual place.”

As he did with most of his video, he ended with a short wave.

For a moment, Chris just sat there staring at the finished video. He was going to do collaborations?

Chris had wanted to do a collaboration with someone for ages and if he did one with Josh that would be perfect since he seemed to share Chris’ odd sense of humour.  However, Chris didn’t want to get his hopes up too much since there were probably many other YouTubers with much more popular channels than his own that were going to try and get in contact with Josh. Although Josh seemed pretty chilled out, many YouTubers only ever collaborated with YouTubers that were on the same ‘popularity level’ and it could be very likely that Chris’ email would just get instantly ignored.

After a few more moments of consideration, Chris decided that he might as well give it a go. Besides, if he emailed and didn’t get a response then that wouldn’t be the end of the world and at least he would have tried. If he was lucky enough to get through to him then this could be a really great thing, he’d have been able to collaborate with a great YouTuber and he also might gain a friend. The latter might have been reaching quite a bit, but Chris couldn’t help the feeling that they were meant to be friends. Then again, that might just be his weird admiration-crush-thing talking.

Not giving himself any time to change his mind, Chris copied the email address in the description box underneath the video and formed a quick and to the point email. Chris wasn’t too sure whether he would come across as too forward but he sent it anyway.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**_From: ChrisDavisss@yahoo.com  
To: JustJoshingYou@ymail.com_ **

_Hey,_

_I saw your video about possibly doing collabs and I just thought, well, what the hell!  
My name’s Chris and I do gaming videos too (although I’ve only really been making them for a few months). I don’t really have any preference when it comes to game choices although I’ve heard a lot of good things about Five Nights at Freddy’s recently. If you want get back to me that’d be cool, if not then that’s cool too._

_-Chris Davis (TheChrisEffect on YouTube)_

Chris read over the email as soon as he finished typing. It probably wasn’t the best email he’d ever written but he was nervous and sort of excited at the same time, and he just wanted to send it off as quickly as he could.

It was already pretty late; he had just finished uploading the latest part in his short series of _Slender_ when he got bored and drifted towards Josh’s channel _._ He was rather proud of his new video; he’d edited it differently this time. The video was a pretty good watch once you got used to Chris’ constant and panicked screaming every time Slenderman got close.

Checking the time on his computer he sighed, it was already 1:25am. Luckily, he didn’t have anything planned for the following day but he had been going to bed pretty late recently and he wanted to nip the habit in the bud.

He closed the windows on his computer and got changed into his pyjamas. At the moment they were just an old t-shirt that was now too big for him- since he had lost weight recently- and some tatty navy tartan pyjama bottoms. He had been meaning to get some proper pyjamas for a while but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

Chris climbed into bed and pulled the copious amount of blankets over himself. The heating in his apartment worked but even with it turned on, he still felt cold all of the time.

Hopefully by the morning he would have gotten a reply.

-

Josh swivelled around on his chair. He had just uploaded his video and he assumed that it wouldn’t be long until he had a couple of new emails in his inbox.

He wasn’t really too keen on the idea of doing collaborations but Hannah and Beth had decided that he spent too much time in his comfort zone and around the same people and so he needed to push himself out into the world.

Josh used to go to YouTube conventions to meet some of his subscribers and other YouTubers, but he had been so busy that he’d forgotten to take his meds that day. The day went from being fun to being very scary for him in a matter of hours, it was a good thing that he bumped into Beth – who was there to meet some friends – when he did. Ever since then he’d been a bit wary about going to conventions, it was all too easy to get swept up and forget about things while you were there.  

After swivelling around on his chair again, he logged into his email. There were a few new emails about doing collaborations along with an email from Dr Hill reminding him that their next session had been moved to a week later.

The first three emails were from eager kids in their early teens. Josh sighed. He probably should have mentioned that they should be over 18; it would be too awkward and quite uncomfortable for everyone if they were a minor.

There were another couple of emails but they appeared to be in broken English, which was a shame because they were probably really great YouTubers. Language barriers are always a hard thing to overcome but props to them for trying to learn.

However, one email caught his eye. There was no subject but Josh already knew that it was about the collaborations.

It didn’t take him long to read since the email was pretty short, but it seemed promising. Having this Chris Davis guy mention Five Nights at Freddy’s was a plus too, since that was one of the games he was going to suggest that they play if he found the right person to collaborate with.

“Please don’t be a minor, please don’t be a minor.” Josh mumbled under his breath as typed the username into YouTube.

 _TheChrisEffect_ was an obvious play on The Butterfly Effect.

The channel looked nice. The banner and channel icon were kind of cute too, a stylised doodle of a blond man with glasses. Josh assumed that this blond guy had to be Chris.

An introduction video on the first page of his channel began to play at a ridiculous volume. Josh jumped at the noise and quickly fumbled with the volume buttons to turn it down; he must have knocked them earlier.

“Hi I’m Chris and this is-.”

The man’s short introduction was then cut off with lots of little clips from various games that Josh assumed were all on his channel somewhere. Each clip was of a different horror game with Chris screaming in the face of each monster. Some, but not all, of the clips had a facecam in the corner and from seeing Chris’ face, Josh could tell he was in his early twenties.

Josh couldn’t help but smile at the video, this guy seemed pretty cool. Not only that, but he seemed to have good capture software and a great microphone. Chris being attractive was just an added bonus.

Re-opening his email account, Josh quickly typed a reply.

**_From: JustJoshingYou@ymail.com  
To: ChrisDavisss@yahoo.com_ **

_Hey dude, I got your email and I just wanted to say that if you’re still up for doing a collab, I’m totally up for it too. I’ve checked out your channel and you seem cool. So if you still want to do this thing then text me, since texting is a hell of a lot easier than emailing._

_-Josh_

_P.S. Five Nights at Freddy’s sounds like an awesome idea_

Josh finished off the email by adding his mobile number. This was his first collaboration and he assumed that this was Chris’ first collaboration too, so he wasn’t too sure how to go about it but it seemed to be going okay so far. All they needed to do now was to sort out a date and find some way of getting it so that they could see the same screen; it would be a lot easier if they were in the same area. Josh hadn’t asked Chris where he lived but considering that YouTube was a worldwide thing, it wouldn’t be likely that he lived nearby.

Clicking back on the window containing Chris’ channel, Josh bit back a smile. He was getting strangely excited about this whole collaboration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think i'm going to add another chapter to this soon where Chris and Josh actually get to the collab thing and then this whole 'first meeting' thing will be done. I have another oneshot for this AU where they go to a convention and stuff but I want to finish this lil thing first. I'm still not quite used to writing Climbing Class yet so I hope this isn't too bad
> 
> Unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine.
> 
> Also I don't know if I want to have them having a long distance relationship or not. I'm leaning towards not mainly because I'm not actually too sure as to how long distance youtube collaborations would work in the gaming world since FnaF is a single player game and for it to work with two people you'd need them both to be able to see the screen. Unless you guys have any ideas as to how I could make that work, I'm probably going to have to make them be in a non long distance relationship (even though I had some cute ideas for them meeting if I did go down the LDR route)
> 
> Also I don't know if the emails i've used in this chapter are real emails so like if they are i'm sorry and i totally didn't mean to??


	3. Chapter 3

For the next few days, Chris and Josh spent a large majority of their time texting each other. Some of their texts were about their upcoming collaboration but most of the time they were just getting to know one another and talking about shitty horror movies.

Chris managed to find out a lot about Josh during those texting sessions. Apparently he had two younger sisters called Hannah and Beth, and that he lived somewhere around the Blackwood Pines area which was where Chris’ mum lived. He also discovered that Josh was a massive fan of anything horror related, be it game, movie, or book.

In return, Chris told Josh about himself. He talked about how after his parents divorced he moved cross-country to stay with his dad and be closer to the rest of his family. Chris had even explained about how despite how much he seems to scream when he plays horror games, he actually really enjoys them. Usually if he’s by himself he only lets out a little noise of shock once in a while, but when he’s on YouTube it becomes his YouTube personality in a way. He was never too sure how to phrase it but Josh said that he understood, that he comes across as calm during some games when really he just wants to hide behind the sofa because “ _Jesus Christ are scarecrows fucking creepy.”_

Soon enough, the date they set for recording came. Chris was trying to sort out his bed hair when his computer alerted him of an incoming Skype call from Josh.

The bubbly tune stopped playing abruptly when Chris picked up. On his screen, the wallpaper of his childhood dog Henry was replaced with Josh.

Josh looked less tired than he had been in his latest video. The bags under his eyes were less puffy and his hair looked as though it had been freshly brushed. It looked so soft and the way that it curled was just so- Shit Josh was talking.

“Sorry. What did you say?” Chris asked, moving to sit down on the chair in front of his desk.

Josh’s laugh sounded distorted through the speakers of Chris’ computer.

“I said your hair is a mess bro.”

“Fuck, I know. “ He said, running his fingers through his unkempt hair. “It won’t cooperate, ugh.”

Chris had tried everything to keep his hair in his usual faux-hawk style. He had tried, rewashing it but that seemed to make it worse. He had even tried gelling it and adding hair spray, but then he had to wash it for the third time that morning to get all of the goo out. It just seemed as though it was Chris’ fate to have bad hair today.

Josh shrugged.

“Whatever dude, it’s not _that_ bad.” Josh said with a small smirk, alerting Chris that his hair was actually _that_ bad. “Not time to fuss over it, we’ve got us some filming to do!”

Laughing, Chris tried to flatten down his hair one last time.

He had already set up his microphone and his camera. Chris wasn’t too sure as to how this whole thing was going to work, but Josh had assured him that he had software that could put his own desktop screen on Chris’ so that it was like they were playing in the same room.

“So how is this going to work exactly?” Asked Chris, double checking that all of his computer wires were plugged in.

The last thing he wanted was to ruin a recording because one of the wires was loose; it had happened before and it really sucked.

“Okay well, I’m gonna send you a link and it should take you to a screen that’ll look like my desktop. I’ll probably move your skype window to the left corner and put my facecam below that- wait unless you don’t want your face in this, that’d be okay too…” Josh then started rambling off about the techier side of it all. He began to explain about overlaying audio and editing, and Chris just nodded and took it all in.

-

It was soon decided that despite his horrendous bed hair, Chris would have his facecam in the video. The plan was that Chris would record his own facecam and then send it to Josh who would edit it into the video to cover up the original, lower quality, skype window. They would do one video for Josh’s channel and then one for Chris’, because it didn’t seem fair to only have one for Josh.

“You ready to start rolling, Cochise?” Josh asked with a smile as he readjusted his black headset.

Chris watched the game’s title screen that was being streamed from Josh’s computer. It looked a bit static-y, like an old VHS tape. He assumed that the static part was actually from the game and not the screen sharing software. But every now and again there would be the face of a bear like creature that would emerge from the static. This was going to be fun, or at least he hoped it would be.

“As I’ll ever be.” He replied.

Josh threw Chris a quick smile before moving to click something on his computer. When he looked back up at the camera, his eyes looked a bit less focused and Chris assumed that this was his ‘I’m talking to people that aren’t really in the room’ face.

“Hello friends and fans.” Josh said in a confident tone. “I’m here today with my new bro, Chris also known as TheChrisEffect here on YouTube. Now, we’ve decided to play Five Nights at Freddy’s and I know you’ve all been nagging me to play this game for ages so _taa daa,_ here it is.

Okay so I don’t actually know anything about this game other than that there’s some bear called Freddy in it. But I’ve heard a load of really great things about it and apparently the game is quite hard.”

Josh moved his cursor around the screen to click on the starting button, and the screen changed into a first person view of a dark office with lots of posters on the back wall.

“Freddy is a bit of an odd name for a bear, don’t you think?” Chris commented, watching as Josh flicked through each of the CCTV camera feeds and shut the doors that were on either side of the room. “Wait what did that guy say?”

Neither of them had been paying much attention to the game’s introductory audio that explained what was going on, so when the answerphone audio switched off they still had no clue as to what the game was really about.

“Not too sure bro, I was messing with the cameras. Something about animatronics I think.” Josh said, flicking through the CCTV footage again.

There were eleven cameras that were dotted around the area, each one showing a dark and creepy section of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. Josh had been hovering over camera 1A, looking at the three animatronics in the room when the camera feed went black.

“Shit wait was he moving?” Chris asked with a slight panic to his voice.

Animatronics were always creepy, but in this kind of situation they seemed like things of nightmares.

Josh nodded, his eyes focused on the screen waiting to see if the camera was going to restart in a minute. A few seconds later the footage was back, but this time the yellow bird that was between the other two animatronics was gone.

“Okay that’s cool.” Josh said, smirking.

Josh was beginning to really like this game. It was a different kind of horror game that he had never seen before. The use of CCTV cameras and living animatronics was a really awesome idea. However, the whole battery thing was quite irritating, he had to keep opening the doors and turning of the cameras just to conserve battery.

“Cool?!” Chris whined, “That’s a killer animatronic chicken that’s coming to kill us. How did it even turn the camera off?”

Switching CCTV cameras again, Josh and Chris kept their eyes on the yellow chicken that was slowly getting closer to them.

“So, you think we’re going to die as a result of…” Josh paused for dramatic effect “ _Fowl_ play?”

Chris rolled his eyes and couldn’t help but laugh at the pun, it was so bad but the worse the pun the funnier it was. Hearing Chris laugh made Josh chuckle too, he had such a nice and contagious laugh.

“Death by a chicken animatronic would mean we had pretty bad _cluck._ ” Added Chris.

Josh laughed again, turning his attention away from the CCTV and towards Chris’ Skype window.

The battery count on the screen dwindled down to zero percent and the camera feed flickered out. The CCTV window shut down to reveal the original office, although the lights that were previously on had been switched off leaving the room mostly dark with a faint blue glow. However, neither of them noticed as they were too busy making chicken puns.

“Well, these puns really are quite _meaty yolker._ ”

“Personally I think that these are _egg_ celent-“

Chris was cut off as the sound of a music box brought their attention back to the game. The light tune was made foreboding and scary by the dark appearance of the room.

“Shit. Josh, bro.” Chris said quickly. “Josh dude shut the doors. Shit. Shut the doors!”

Josh was manically trying to operate the doors but they wouldn’t budge. He was certain that he was pressing the right buttons, he had to be.

“I can’t! It’s not working! Oh fuck man, we used up all of the battery!”

Slumping back into his chair, Josh awaited the death of their character. There wasn’t anything else they could do since they had no battery left.

“Wait, turn left.” Chris suggested, and Josh did as he asked.

From the darkness of the doorway, there were the white flashing lights of animatronic eyes. Chris guessed that that was what was making the dreadful song.

“Bro-“ Josh starts only to trail of as the screen turned a pitch black and the music stopped. “Oh fuck _no_.”

They waited in suspense for a moment, Chris half covering his face with his hand and Josh squinting his eyes at the screen as though he was listening for some quiet indication of what was to come.

A screech emitted from the game and Chris at the same time as a large animatronic brown bear popped up on the screen.

“Bro not cool! Not cool! What the hell!” Josh yelled at the bear while Chris tried to regain his steady breathing.

The screen was then plunged into static and returned back to the starting title screen.

_Game Over._

After a few seconds of silent shock, Chris started laughing which caused Josh to laugh again too.

“Dude we didn’t even get past the first night.” Chris said, between laughs.

The two spent a few minutes laughing and discussing the game, which they both decided was something they wanted to attempt at again. Hopefully next time they’ll get past night one. Josh then wrapped up his recording with a short goodbye and an obligatory “Like, Comment, and Subscribe.”

Turning off his screen capture software that he used to record the session, Josh looked into the camera at Chris.

“Hey this was really fun, do you maybe want to do it again sometime?” He asked with a smile.

Chris was sure that his heart did a little flutter, but he put that down to left over adrenaline from the jump scare.

“Dude, totally! Hey can you show me how to use that screen sharing thing? It looks really useful.” Chris asked.

Josh nodded enthusiastically; he was going to have to explain how to use it anyway since it didn’t seem fair for Chris to put up a video on his channel of just Josh playing a game with Chris helping with the commentary.

“Sure thing bro, it’s great for gaming things. Plus it’s good for streaming movies.” Josh explained.

Chris wasn’t sure whether it was a trick of the light or if he was just imagining it, but he was almost certain that Josh just winked at him. He hoped that the blush that was now rising on his cheeks could be passed off as a trick of the light too.

“So, do you want me to walk you through screen sharing?” Josh asked again.

Josh didn’t say anything but he definitely noticed Chris flush. If a wink could make him do that, Josh wondered how flustered Chris would get if he actually flat out flirted with him. It was an adorable blush and Josh being Josh was going to flirt with him outrageously in order to see it again.

“Dude, yes!”

Josh mentally made a note to thank his sisters later for pushing him into doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tis done! I hope that this wasn't too shitty but I wanted to just establish how Chris and Josh met in this universe. Ahh I hope that this wasn't too bad and that y'all enjoyed it.
> 
> After this, Chris and Josh did a video for Chris' channel and their fans really loved the two together. Because of the warm reception that they got, the two did more and more videos together and even started a horror series together called "Horror Bros" where they just played horror games and made really bad puns all of the time. Somewhere along the line the two started dating and neither were too sure as to when that was. Since they lived too far away they hadn't gotten the chance to meet up so their dates consisted of late night Skyping and using the screen sharing thing to watch movies...
> 
> Basically this long distance relationship thing means that I can write cutesy airport meetings ahhhh!!
> 
> Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own

**Author's Note:**

> Another piece to go with my Climbing Class YouTuber AU. I just really liked the idea of Josh being the more popular YouTuber and Chris originally looking up to his channel. I want to add another piece to this that takes place like right after but to be totally honest I don't know enough about how YouTube collaborations would work so that might be on hold for a bit. However, I do have some ideas for some other little one-shots in this AU because I dunno I just really like this AU.
> 
> Unbeta'd so please tell me of any mistakes.


End file.
